I recently read
an article from a mother who believes strongly that young kids shouldn't be doing homework, and so her kids don't. She talks with their teachers and is very respectful, but she focuses their family time on the things she feels like matter most. I thought that was really great. I'm not planning on veto-ing homework for our family, but it did make me rethink whether our after school homework time was really the best. I know well what areas my kids are great in and where they need more practice, so I've started to work on making our homework time more meaningful and not just hurriedly getting through what was assigned. (And with a little extra sleep, that is feeling more possible!) We've started doing little extension activities I'll think of, or at least having conversations about the take home books Ellie. For Landon, homework that feels like busy-work I just let slide, and then I've also made more of an effort to encourage neat handwriting and thoughtful responses on the work he is doing. And I've been trying to think of fun activities we can do all together too. This week, we've all been playing a Valentine's math facts game as part of homework time, and the kids have really loved it.
{I wrote down numbers on a bunch of hearts, and we spread them around the front room. Then I ask each child a question one at at time - number recognition for Owen, add and subtract for Ellie, and tougher multiplication/division for Landon. They have to find the heart with the answer, hand it to me, then run around the loop of our upstairs, and then they can get a new question. Landon had fun yesterday taking over my role of asking questions too.}
I love doing little projects and games like these, so I'm feeling so happy to be taking the time to do them these days!
